"And sometimes the fastest path requires going through an ocean," Hölzle said simply.

Woohyong Choi, chairman of the FASTER executive committee, added in the announcement that FASTER will be one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world upon completion.

"The FASTER cable system has the largest design capacity ever built on the Trans-Pacific route, which is one of the longest routes in the world," Choi continued. "The agreement announced today will benefit all users of the global internet.”

On a geographic basis, the FASTER cable network is going to be set up with hubs along the US West Coast around the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle areas. On the other side of the Pacific, there will be two landing locations in Japan, facilitating connections to neighboring cable systems across Asia.

Estimated to be worth approximately $300 million at this time, the rest of the consortium is rounded out by China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel.

But the design and rhetoric are already much more than just words, goals, and dreams.

Construction is scheduled to start immediately with a launch date projected for the second quarter of 2016. NEC will be the primary system supplier.